All Pigs Are Beautiful: Read and Wonder

A great resource for teachers!

Read and Wonder books tell stories, take children on adventures,
and reveal how big and WONDER-full the natural world really is.

Children's Literature

Dick King-Smith's fondness for pigs is apparent from the first sentence of this book, the jovial exclamation "I love pigs." He ends his story with a similarly admiring statement that "All pigs are beautiful." In between, a playful ode to the pig and its human-like qualities reveals much about the species. Readers learn, for instance, that the pig is a very stubborn animal that enjoys having its back scratched. They also learn that female breeding pigs spend their lives having lots of babies. While King-Smith indulges in the anthropomorphism of the pig, he does so in an affectionate and entertaining manner. Thus, he imagines that if a pig could talk, he'd be saying such things as "How kind of you to admire my children" or "Scratch a littler harder, please—up a little, a little to the left, down a little. Yes, that's it." Throughout the book, additional factual information appears in cursive lettering offset from the main text. This edition is part of the "Read, Listen & Wonder" series that includes a book and audio CD. The audio includes a fifteen-minute CD divided into three parts: a read-aloud with sound effects and music, a read-along guided by prompts and a segment of fascinating pig facts. The pig facts are expanded versions of the italicized passages in the book and do not follow the text word for word. The audio CD is narrated by Alan Marriott, best known for his voices on the popular television show Bob the Builder. This story lends itself particularly well to an oral version, and Marriott has provided a highly amusing and animated reading that perfectly suits this witty text. Reviewer: Margaret Orto

Dick King-Smith was a dairy farmer for twenty years, but he always kept pigs. He says,"I am devoted to them. Everything I say about them is absolutely true."

Anita Jeram had never drawn a pig before, but learned about pigs by watching them on farms."I'd love to own one," she says now, "but I don‘t think my family would approve."